Destructiveness of the .58 Minie Ball

I have not done any tests on wood, but I have shot lots of deer with hand cast minies over 60 grains of Goex in an Armi Sport Springfield. The closest was at around 30 yards and the farthest was around 100 yards. They never went more than a few steps, and always a pass through so I never got a bullet back to look at it. I shot one 190# buck in a quartering towards me shot. The ball hit him where the neck joins the shoulder on his right side and exited his left hip. The exit holes were usually about 1-1.5 inches in diameter. The real eye opener was what happened to any bones that got in the way! I hit the off side shoulder bones one time when the ball was passing through. They were blasted into splinters.
 
Now that is a ROUND. I put 2 incendiary 50's into an old hay barn once. WOW.
Well, I hope the owner of the barn had fire insurance :bye:.

Years ago, after sighting in deer rifles, my brother wanted to shoot his original M1 Garand with its original tracer round bullets. The target was about 200 yards away. He fired one round and it hit the target, then the ground, then zipped up into the air, clipped a limb behind the target, then dove back down into the woods beyond. It was like watching a bottle rocket. Real cool!

However, About 10 seconds later, we saw a small fire down in the woods where the tracer round landed. Luckily, my son and nephew ran down there and peed on the growing fire before my brother and I could get there. In this manner, we averted disaster. Thank heavens for fast youngens and good bladders. :smile coffee:
 
Well, I hope the owner of the barn had fire insurance :bye:.

Years ago, after sighting in deer rifles, my brother wanted to shoot his original M1 Garand with its original tracer round bullets. The target was about 200 yards away. He fired one round and it hit the target, then the ground, then zipped up into the air, clipped a limb behind the target, then dove back down into the woods beyond. It was like watching a bottle rocket. Real cool!

However, About 10 seconds later, we saw a small fire down in the woods where the tracer round landed. Luckily, my son and nephew ran down there and peed on the growing fire before my brother and I could get there. In this manner, we averted disaster. Thank heavens for fast youngens and good bladders. :smile coffee:
Amen to that!!!! As a result of my escapade I now know that yellow tipped rounds, to wit: .50 caliber...are incendiaries :D
 
Many of the standard reloading manuals(Lyman comes to mind) will give you the muzzle velocity and muzzle energy in foot pounds ( the amount of energy required to move one pound a distance of one foot) of just about any cartridge, with different loads of powder and length of barrel. Common pistol loads are given with barrel lengths of two to six inches, rifle cartridges from barrels of 18-24 inches. Some loads, like the .44-40, which can be chambered for rifle or pistol, will be shown for both and one will see at once that given the same load, a cartridge fired from a rifle will go faster than the same load from a pistol. With black powder, barrel length difference is even more noticeable.

For comparison a .44 black powder revolver bullet is quite similar to that of the modern .38 special in muzzle energy. The .36 Navy revolver produces figures similar to the later .32 Colt cartridge , actually a somewhat anemic caliber and not an especially good man stopper. In general, it is difficult for black powder to produce the muzzle velocity of more modern smokeless powder so whereas a modern cartridge might drive a 150 grain bullet at 2,000 feet per second with ease, getting a bullet to go beyond 1400 feet per second with black powder is hard, even with a heavy powder load and long barrel and a light bullet. With a very heavy load of black powder you would be shooting yet unignited powder out the muzzle. The black powder muskets of the Revolutionary War through the Civil War derived their killing and knockdown power not from high speed projectiles but from heavy projectiles, 400 -500 grains of lead at modest speeds of about 1,000 feet per second.

On paper such musket loads are not impressive. A .30-30 deer rifle usually produces about 1900 ft. lbs. of energy, a .30-06 or .270 in the 2400 ft. lbs. range while muzzle loading muskets about 1,000 0r 1100 ft. lbs of muzzle energy, BUT, the modern metal jacketed military loads are designed to penetrate and thus much of their energy is expended beyond the target hit (hunting ammo is soft lead, usually rounded or hollow pointed to expand within the target and expend its energy on the target hit). The heavy round balls or minie balls of muskets expand on impact and impart all of their energy to the target, hence my earlier observation that large appliances hit with modern high speed bullets just get neat holes put through them while the musket balls actually made huge holes and moved the targets. The professional buffalo hunters with their Sharps in .45-90 caliber had no trouble bringing down 1500 pound buffalo with single shots. Other variables are involved, but, the bottom line on this is that large caliber pure lead slugs at modest muzzle speeds are as lethal as anything being used today at distances of less than about 150 yards, in my opinion.

You hit the nail on the head with this post! That's why a 12 gauge loaded with buckshot is
considered the best home self defense firearm out there by many firearms experts. Buckshot
doesn't come flying out of the barrel at velocities of 2000 ft + per second but the sheer weight
of the lead and the fact that multiple projectiles of lets say 00 buckshot which is equal to .32
on the caliber chart makes a blast at short range devastating to its intended target.
 
You hit the nail on the head with this post! That's why a 12 gauge loaded with buckshot is
considered the best home self defense firearm out there by many firearms experts. Buckshot
doesn't come flying out of the barrel at velocities of 2000 ft + per second but the sheer weight
of the lead and the fact that multiple projectiles of lets say 00 buckshot which is equal to .32
on the caliber chart makes a blast at short range devastating to it's intended target.
I was trained with a pistol, a rifle, and a shotgun. Far and away, my weapon of choice is a shotgun.
 
Like the experiment. When I was in high school, I wanted to do a similar experiment like this. That was many, many years ago. Also it was before I shot Black Powder so I was limited with my options of weapons and ammo types.
Someone recommended building a box with slats to measure the penetration. I didn't know how it would work but I knew it would be fun to compare the results. I was able to test it out when I took shots at an farm house with wood walls. A simple walk through the house, I was able to locate the spent balls.

Regarding the damage a .58 caliber inflicts, I was always amazed how it blows out the back of a solid pine board. After taking 3 or 4 shots at a 2 X 4 board, the front is heavily damaged----but the back is complete gone.
 
Hello. I just found this wonderful site. I have a few questions for the person who conducted this experiment - how far away were you when you fired the 0.58 minie ball into the box? If I'm correct interpreting your account, the minie ball penetrated all seven 0.75-thick plywood boards each separated by ~4 inches. When you refer to seven boards does that include or exclude the front of the box? Last, how far did the hole 'drop' between each board? Thank you.
 
I have fired minie balls at before targets before and at old cars. They can do some serious damage to things. I have seen personal photos of what a .50 can do to a person. They were Germans, and they were pretty cut up. They were from Quad 50's. I have fired a few clips of tracers through an M-1. Our range was a abandoned quarry. It was interesting to say the least, it was at night. The most fun was an M-14 with a full clip, at that same range. It was like Christmas. We did that little experiment in the dead of winter just in case. It was really wild to see those tracers fly. Thanks to @Cumpston1862 for the video, I used to reenact with the guy in the video and to @Antongeoresearch for the great thread. I loved all of the posts!
 
I have fired minie balls at before targets before and at old cars. They can do some serious damage to things. I have seen personal photos of what a .50 can do to a person. They were Germans, and they were pretty cut up. They were from Quad 50's. I have fired a few clips of tracers through an M-1. Our range was a abandoned quarry. It was interesting to say the least, it was at night. The most fun was an M-14 with a full clip, at that same range. It was like Christmas. We did that little experiment in the dead of winter just in case. It was really wild to see those tracers fly. Thanks to @Cumpston1862 for the video, I used to reenact with the guy in the video and to @Antongeoresearch for the great thread. I loved all of the posts!
Have personally seen what 5.56 green tip, 7.62x39, 7.62x54R, 7.62 Nato and .50 Cal out of an M-2 will do to the human body in iraq (was an advisor to the Iraqi Army). the first 4 when hit center mass will mess up a bad guy. We also had an incident where a car was approaching a HMMWV at high speed, the gunner didnt have time to transition and fired a burst at the car with .50 cal. at least 1 round hit the drivers head, needless to say it was a bad situation.

Ive been casting my .58 cal Minnies out of pure lead, using both the Lyman OS and the Lee molds. I like the lymans better, but have not had the chance to test them against a deer yet.

I did notice that at least one bullet that must not have obturated/skirt didnt expand and hit the target sideways in the OP's pictures. I wonder if this happened often during the civil war, especially with bullets like the Williams Cleaners which didnt have a skirt to expand into the rifling.
 
Does anyone have any comparisons of this bullet with more modern bullets in terms of muzzle velocity and foot pounds on impact, e.g., against a .40 pistol, a .223, a .38?

Not science but I was shooting with a friend who was using .40. He had a steel knock down target that he had been bouncing .40 cal and a couple of .357s off of all afternoon just knocking it over with no damage. I shot it with .50 cal single shot black powder pistol and it cratered the steel. I still feel bad about damaging my friends expensive target but I have never underestimated the power of those big led balls again.
 
Hello. I just found this wonderful site. I have a few questions for the person who conducted this experiment - how far away were you when you fired the 0.58 minie ball into the box? If I'm correct interpreting your account, the minie ball penetrated all seven 0.75-thick plywood boards each separated by ~4 inches. When you refer to seven boards does that include or exclude the front of the box? Last, how far did the hole 'drop' between each board? Thank you.
Welcome, enjoy
 
ve been casting my .58 cal Minnies out of pure lead, using both the Lyman OS and the Lee molds. I like the lymans better, but have not had the chance to test them against a deer yet.

I did.
I shot a doe from a small stand at range of 70 yards. As the smoke was clearing I saw the deer leap off the ground and take off in a run. I thought I had made a bad shot.
My hunting buddy came over and asked did I miss? I said I thought so. He said he heard the round come over his deer stand. What!!
He pointed over in the dark and said there she is. I did make a bad shot placement. The round went through both shoulders, hit the ground and flew over my friend sitting several hundred yards away---ruined some good meat. That was only a .50 caliber pushed by 90 grains.
 
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